[Game] Hatsune Miku: Project Diva

Finally, a Hatsune Miku game has been released (over a week ago) on the PSP. Although it is in japanese, everything on the main menu is relatively easy to navigate (just click and try). In other words, you don’t need to know japanese to play the game.

Project Diva is yet another rhythm game (duh!). PSP buttons like triangle, circle, square or cross will fly from outside the screen to an allocated destination on the screen itself. It’s pretty self explanatory. Press the corresponding button when it hits the destination. Like most rhythm game, such visuals are only meant to be a guide. What and how you press (ie the rhythm of pressing) will be mostly based on the song itself like most rhythm games.

But to me, that game itself is just a sidetrack from the real deal. When you play the music game itself, the background will actually be the PV of the song (think MTV). Unlike most rhythm games, in Project Diva, you actually want to see the background more than the game itself. To unlock the clean PV (without the notes flying all about), you must score rather high on the song itself, which a large portion comes from “Chance Time”. While playing a song, you will come upon a “Chance Time” section of the song, where the more you chain, the score you get will exponentially increase. I repeat: Exponentially. So if you break your chain, especially in the middle, your Chance Time score will be crap. This makes the rest of the game rather redundant; olher than to survive the song, there’s no real bonus for chains.

The PVs that were created were actually very good. Hatsune really feels alive in all the songs. Her dance moves are great, her flow is smooth, and they even got the detail down to her facial expressions. Just like the really good youtube.com Hatsune Miku videos.

Since this game is ALL about Hatsune (ultimately), you get to dress her up, customize her room, and alot of misc stuff I probably haven’t explored yet (still busy unlocking PVs and songs lol). There are even popular Hatsune Miku songs like Melt.

This game is definitely for Hatsune Miku fans.

Dragonica

My ign is: Setup, currently level 22 assassin.

Nice game to play when you are free imo, espacially since it’s free and I find it more fun than Maple Story.

[Game] RE5

I haven’t been a follower of the Resident Evil series. I’ve always overlooked the game, somehow. Now that I have no games to play (bored at home), it is impossible to ignore it.

At least my weekends for this month are safe. =)

Ken flowchart

top tier stuff cus it’s so true.

Granado Espada – Free DVD delivered to your house

http://ge.iahgames.com/Site/Content.aspx?Id=46

Are they that desperate? Or do they have tons of money?

Dawn of War 2 beta preview

Dawn of War 2 is just around the corner with its beta launched a week or so back. I had a bad feeling when relic announced that DoW2 will take out the building aspect of the game. RTS until this age has always been building structures that allow advancement in technology, upgrades and producing units. It feels as if they are taking out a major portion of what makes DoW1 an RTS.

But after looking at the beta videos on youtube, I felt a bit relieved. Things doesn’t look as bad as I expected and after watching videos after videos, I guess I’ll have to upgrade my computer asap just to play it.

Looks like this year would be a good year for RTS’s, all I need now is time to play it.

Gaming plan for this year

Considering I wouldn’t have much time for my home-staying consoles, I decided to simply focus on whatever my PSP/DS have to offer. This year I’m going to try to clear as many JRPGs as possible. I always had the bad habit of stopping before the last boss so this year I’m going to attempt to break that. Priority now would go to FF7, 8 and 9. I have never really completed 7 (I think I stopped around the golden saucer area), and I gave up on 8 twice due to certain atrocious plot twists. For 9, I stopped before the last boss.

Then I’ll probably head on to playing BOF series (I remember BOF4 was kinda awesome but I can’t remember why I stopped). Then probably Star Ocean, Fire Emblem, Vagrant Story, the very first Persona. I dunno if I want to play Suikoden I, considering I have to lug a walkthrough along wherever I go…

Then again, my driving course is coming to an end. What awaits me at 3sig is still uncertain.

[Game] Final Fantasy: Dissidia

I’ve always been a person who likes to grind in single player games (but never gets it done ^^;). When I first heard of FF:Dissidia, I thought it would just be another crap game that’s trying out a new mechanic that wouldn’t be enjoyable. Games from series tend to be like that if that branch off from a genre that they originate from.

So I decided to just give it a shot, since putting all the FF series together in one game has been a childhood wet dream of mine. KH didn’t really do it for me (only FFVII and up) but it’s still a good game that made me a little happy, but a little sad since I can’t use any of the FF characters.

So enter FF:Dissidia into my PSP. I wasn’t expecting much, but I was quickly hooked once I figured out how the battle system works and slowly the ability to customize each and every character. Of course, I mentioned I liked to grind and so yeah, there are actually levels and AP in this game. For those unfamiliar with what AP is, it’s basically points used to master a skill equipped by your character.

The game mechanics are relatively simple once you start noticing the numbers popping up on the battlefield. Each character have two main stats on the field, mainly Brave and HP. Brave Points are those big numbers on top of your HP bar at the bottom of the screen. Exactly HP numbers are located in a small font at the bottom of the HP bar.

Just like there are two main stats, each and every character in the game have two main attacks, namely HP attack and Brave attack, with HP attack being the square button and Brave attack being the circle button. Like what it means, Brave attack attacks the opponent’s Brave and HP attack attacks the opponent’s HP. However, Brave attacks also increases your own brave points, so to simplify everything, Brave attacks essentially absorbs opponent’s Brave points and place it into your own Brave points.

Finally, to make sense out of both attacks, your HP attack damage is exactly the same as your brave points. After you execute and hit (keyword is HIT), your brave points will drop to 0 and slowly regen to your base Brave Points.

Breaking is a mechanic whereby if you are being hit and your brave points goes below 0, you will enter a “Break” status. Before that happens, your opponent will be rewarded with brave points equal to the number right at the bottom center of the screen between both your hp bars. How this number is generated is still beyond me (the japanese might know already tho -.-). In a “Break” status, you will slowly begin to regen to your base Brave before everything if normal again. In this mode, if you hit with your HP attack, you will completely restore you from the Break status, but you will do 0 damage.

There are more mechanics in the game but these are the basics that will get everyone started with the game.

I find it nice to listen to battle themes I remember from all the FFs, espacially the FFIII boss fight and FFV Gilgamesh battle theme. The fights looks like the scenes from recent FF games and movies (Crisis Core and Advent Children); alot of flying, hits and stuff like that.

Overally I think it’s a surprisingly great game. Too bad it’s in japanese. Alot of things I don’t know or couldn’t be bothered to translate -.-

[Game] Tales of Vesperia + JRPG rant

There’s nothing much to gripe about this game really. While I was thinking that JRPGs are on a decline (or rather, a dead genre), I decided to borrow this game from John. Tales of Vesperia is probably the epitome of today’s JRPGs. Since 1997’s FFVII, there hasn’t been many JRPGs that can bring a story that captivates the player. Many remember the legendary JRPGs like Chrono Trigger, Suikoden II, FF4, 6, 7,Tales of Eternia, Tales of Destiny. At first I thought it was perhaps nostalgia, but Tales of Vesperia proved me wrong.

Packaged with the cleanest cell-shading graphics I’ve ever seen, very memorable characters (playable and non-playable alike), a polished combat system (haven’t played Tales of Abyss to compare but anyway), the Tales series have come a long way with Namco. Many JRPGs just focus on graphics and end up having really shitty story (*cough*Lost Odyssey*cough*). Some even have main characters that you don’t even feel like playing. I know that most game developers love to do something new, but sometimes, they don’t have to go overboard and try a new unexperienced model that has a high chance of rejection. Instead they can just revise a working formula.

As for Tales of Vesperia, Yuri is one of the best, if not the best, main character I have ever played. He has done some unexpected things that makes him so awesome. Not only that, Yuri has managed to stay in his character from the start to the finish. What I mean by that? I meant Yuri at the ending is the same Yuri I know that the beginning, with only a few changes. One bad example is FFVIII’s Squall. I don’t know wtf happened to him at Disc 3 where he suddenly turned mushy. Players don’t like drastic change in character without a good proper reason.

For once, random encounters are actually fun. I remembered clear falling asleep while playing Tales of Legendia. I mean, I can actually do combos. Fatal Strike is just too fun to activate to me.

The plot, like all Tales games, is to save the world. Of course, one can’t judge an RPG by its ultimate goal, but by its route towards that goal. ToV has it’s fair share of plot twists…a couple of them that makes you squeal and go wtf (in a good way). I don’t think I have ever seen that in any JRPG (maybe when Crono died in Chrono Trigger).

The bottom line is: All JRPG developers should take a look at ToV and try to understand why it is hailed by some as the best Tales game ever made, and possibly, imho, one of the best JRPGs ever created. JRPG writers (espacially you Suckaguchi) should learn that it is mostly the memorable characters that makes a RPG so great. Rethink back into past JRPGs. Sephiroth, Luca Blight, Kefka, Magus, Frog, Kain, Delita, Gafgarion, Fei, Citan, Grahf. Those are JRPG characters of the past. Nowadays we have wat…Seymour? Gangora? C’mon please…

I don’t think I can think of enough praise for this game. I’ll even consider giving it a 10/10, but it has lousy villains. It’s kinda weird actually…that you play through 3/4 into game and only just discovered who the sub-villain is.

[Game] Fallout 3

Many people had high hopes for this game.

It was a game that’s waiting to be released.

Fans all over the world, have been waiting for it since Interplay died and with it “Fallout 3: No Mutants Allowed”.

Many years later, Bethesda, creators of the Elder Scrolls Series, took over. Many people grumbled about how worried that Fallout 3 would become just ‘another Oblivion with guns’. I am not a fan of Oblivion, in fact I don’t even like Oblivion (I like Morrowind though, but that’s besides the point). People start imagining what it would be like to have a FPS/RPG-like Fallout, and despite my imaginations, I can only expect the worse.

All I remembered about Oblivion was the Assassin’s Guild quests, which was crafted decently well. The rest of the game is just bullcrap, the standard issue save-the-world thing, along with a game mechanic which would work well only in games like Oblivion.

When I started off playing Fallout 3, my first impressions are rather good, after all, I have waited probably 8 years for this. Nostalgia blinded me immediately after I see Pipboy and the Vault suit. Then it wore off and something else took over. It was the exact same feeling as playing Oblivion. So the worse came true, Fallout, is after all the wait, an Oblivion set in post-nuclear-war setting with guns.

Stats and skills are poorly revamped. All the stats, save Intelligence, are crap on their own, espacially Charisma which doesn’t give anything other than greater successes to <Lie> dialogs.  Since skills are now capped at 100%, and since it doesn’t cost more to add skill points at higher percentages, it’s easy to create a character that is really good at a couple of skills and decent in many others. My currently character is currently just really crap at Speech and Barter, aside from other weaponry skills which I don’t need since I already got 2 which are really high (ie I have Small Guns and Melee Weapons really high, I don’t need Unarmed or Energy weapon).

Perks are really dumbed down. You don’t even need to plan much any more. Too many shit perks that are just “Each time to take this perk your Medicine and Science skill increases by 5!”.

The Wasteland setting, the environment rather, is boring.  It’s really one dimensional most of the time but I can’t really bash on that.  I mean, it is a wasteland setting so I guess it’s meant to look deary, but really it makes travelling so damn dull.

Quests are overall pretty well done tbh, but they could be done better.  A lot better.  But considering today’s RPGs, it’s already rather good.  I just…wish it could be better.  I can’t describe here to avoid giving away random spoilers.

And of course we come to VATS, the attempt to make Fallout 3 feel like a Fallout game.  Like all gimmicks, it looks good at first, but gets boring after awhile.  I don’t think they have a choice though, since they are trying to mesh together Fallout 3, an inheritently TBS game, with Oblivion, an inheritently  FPS game.

But undoubtedly, I feel that Fallout 3 could become GOTY for 2008.